As I noted last week, Ryan has a record of falling in line behind his party leadership. The same instinct not to rock the boat during the Bush years that made him a reliable vote for the previous administration’s costly and reckless agenda is the one that appears to be leading him to get behind Trump. It’s not a surprising choice for Ryan, but it will be amusing to see his fans in conservative media treat it as one. I have never understood Republican enthusiasm for Ryan, but it’s probably a phenomenon I won’t have to try to understand for much longer. Many of his admirers have presented him as some fiscal conservative hero that was completely at odds with his voting record for most of his career in the House, but a Trump endorsement will give them reason to remember that record in detail. Ryan has received such glowing coverage in conservative media for the last five years, but now I assume that this sort of coverage is going to diminish for the foreseeable future.

Ryan’s predicament all along is that he can’t openly oppose Trump without undermining his political future, but he has had to appear reluctant to support Trump or risk being written off by the same media boosters that have supported him until now. Once he finally endorses, he’s bound to lose most of the latter. It is doubtful that he will win much goodwill from rank-and-file Republicans later on.

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9 Responses to Report: Ryan to Endorse Trump

Let’s face it — *every* ambitious Republican politician is going to endorse Trump, with the possible exception of Mittens. None of them want to take the blame for Trump’s loss, if he loses, and if he wins, they don’t want to be on his bad side.

Ryan will fall in line because he has to. Ryan likes to project an image of being an independent thinker and a man of principle, but he is just another party hack. If Trump loses, Ryan can position himself for 2020, but he may not get traction even then. Ryan is the candidate of the future…always will be.

If the media read by most Republicans concludes that Paul Ryan is an unimpeachably doctrinaire Reagan-style Republicans, then most Republicans will believe it no matter how mixed his actual voting record is. He has not suffered for voting for TARP, running with Mitt Romney and a host of other actions that are at odds with his image. And he will continue not to suffer, so long as he doesn’t do anything as stupid as undermining turnout in the fall by refusing to endorse Trump out of principle.

Sometimes I have made phone calls to people at times when I knew that they were unavailable; I have also shown up late for events and mouthed banalities. My guess is that Mr. Ryan does not like Mr. Trump but feels that he has to demonstrate party loyalty.

This is one thing about Trump’s candidacy that is deeply satisfying: Who doesn’t love watching GOP “leaders” abasing themselves, especially after all their hysterical posturing about Republican “values”? Whether it’s intentional or not, Trump has really put their toadyism in bright high relief.

Ryan’s people in Wisconsin, speaking to local press, have denied this report out of the Trump camp. Two things seem to be true:

1) The Trump campaign just makes stuff up. Though one silver lining: Whereas establishment conservatives generally lie to the public but speak frankly to the press, the Trump organization doesn’t play special favorites and lies to the public and to the press equally. Consistency!

2) Regardless of the above, of course Ryan will at some point in the next six weeks publicly support Trump. Here in Wisconsin, conservatives are pioneering the fiction that there is a crucial difference between “supporting” Trump and “endorsing” Trump. Wouldn’t be surprising if Ryan tried to adopt that dishonesty and announced his “support” for Trump but specifically denied that he was offering his “endorsement” to Trump.